Auntie Anne's family tree!

Before I forget again, Jen said that Auntie Anne has a fairly detailed family tree on a spreadsheet or word doc. so if possible could you send it my way via email please. And if anyone else has info that could be emailed I'd love to have it.

So, today's adventure was supposed to be all about maxin' and relaxin' ...well...it wasn't. It started at 2:10 this morning when Mom's new weather station alarm went off to tell us we were having weather. Ha Ha Mom! Lucky for her it was only Aaron, myself, Joey and Alex that were awakened by it! I think the joke was on me...but the story continues...when Dad asked me how I slept last night I made the mistake of being honest and told my parents their twin beds suck! And that's what started the hunt for the new twin beds! Aaron and I were bunking with the boys so Lucie could have the guest room. Three or four different mattress places later we left with some new beds...I almost feel guilty but boy I'm going to sleep some good tonight!

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Aaron thinks I'm having blog withdrawals...

I never even mentioned the word when we were at the cottage (where there is no computer) but over the time we were there Aaron kept saying "is this a blog moment?" or "is this going on the blog?"...you'd think I was obsessed with it and I just wanted to set the record straight that I'm not! It's something I usually do in the evening when the boys are in the bathtub, the boys like to bath in our room and our computer is in our bedroom so it just seems to work. So there Aaron!

Although now that I'm at Mom's I can update and hopefully download our camera pictures. I have a great shot of Mom and Dad in the new bar room they've just finished. It looks awesome! They're not sure what they're going to call it so I'll post the pictures and if anyone has a good one let us know!

The big boys are out gun shopping (again, Aaron's obsessed) and the girls are taking the little boys to West Edmonton Mall and hopefully we'll meet up with the guys later. If not, we'll just have to shop more.

And Here's How It All Went Down...

Aaron was the first one up in the morning and put the Christmas bells around Lyla's dog collar and sent her on upstairs to play Rudolph and try and wake up the boys...well about twenty minutes later Aaron went stomping around upstairs to speed things up a bit. So we had our gift opening, then Mom and I took Joey and Alex for a walk around the big pond to burn off some energy. Lucie, Christian, H and Jeff joined us for an afternoon Christmas dinner, then it was the poker game, caramel fondue dessert, Scattagories tournament, midnight lunch and that's about it in a nutshell.

Tomorrow morning we're off to the cottage for a couple days and then heading north to Morinville to spend New Year's. I don't know if any of the other mom's went Boxing Day shopping but I went to do a bit of shopping and never bought a thing for myself but managed to pick up stuff for the boys (including the big boy). Although I found the kids stuff is where the bargains were, The Children's Place had their entire store for 40% off, so I picked up the really cool lined pants and camoflauge pants for the boys for $9 each...you can't buy consigned stuff for that cheap...

Hope you all have a great New Year's!

What A Way to Kick Off the Holidays!

We've been contemplating re-doing our playroom and Aaron thought this would be the perfect opportunity (with a slight push from Dad, Mom and I )...so we (Aaron) spent yesterday painting the playroom which is actually a sandy-yellow, Mom did jungle leaf curtains and we've got a jungle animal border to put up in the new year when the paint is set.  Then Mom and I seen a really nice wardrobe which fits oh-so nicely in the corner of the playroom so then today we had to go back to Home Depot to pick it up...Merry Christmas to me...so now that the painting's out of the way it's all maxin' and relaxin'...Merry Christmas Everyone!

Gotcha Dad !

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...........

Surprise!

Thank you, thank you, thank you Jacquie & family! We had our neighbours over for a visit and gift exchange last night and I tell you they could not have bought anything more perfect! They gave the boys a camouflauge pop up tent with an inflatable bottom! It was so cool! H and I had to run out to buy a few things and came home to find Aaron, Joey and Alex in the tent giggling away. It was a picture perfect moment! Nelson found the ultimate gift for Aaron...a new shooter game...boy, we could be in trouble this year! Jacquie bought me a lovely Japanese tea set...it's like she's telling me to just sit back and relax, great idea Jacquie!

So I officially have closed the dayhome doors for 2005! Yippee! I was supposed to have Aislynn today but when her mom realized she'd be the only child here today she decided to take her daughter shopping with her instead. So, now we're off to zoo with Nannie and Papa today, Aaron has today off too so it'll be a family thing, H has spent the past day or two with us so I suppose she'll want to go home and spend some time with Jeff too. Dad has his first pedicure this afternoon. Hopefully we'll get pictures of that too! He likes to be on the Blog so we'll just test how much...This was actually part of his Christmas gift from last year but he never got around to it and I told him that he can't get new presents until his old presents are done. That got his attention!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas holiday and can spend it with friends and family!

And the Big Guy Wins Another One!

Mom and Dad arrived safely early this evening and Dad couldn't wait to show off his new bling-bling! He now is the proud owner of the Alberta Centennial Medal which makes him an official redneck!

The guys stayed home with the boys and much like Monica and April, Mom and I snuck away for some much needed "away time" from the guys.  We hit the malls and finished up our last minute Christmas stocking stuffers.  It's just not very effective trying to power shop with the wee ones whining, crying, begging for toys or the big boys either for that matter!

H is having a sleepover tonight and heading to Medicine Hat to visit Papa Johnston with Mom and Dad tomorrow and drop off gifts for the MacLean's.  Just a day trip, we should all be having dinner together tomorrow night if everything goes as planned. 

And how is Dad feeling after his surgery you may ask...well he's been busy trying to annoy the heck out of mom and he's also managed to bring his own pre-made dinners...the guys had moose stew and the ladies had beef stew tonight, Dad made lasagna for dinner tomorrow and yes, they even brought their own turkey.  God bless their cotton socks. I'm not totally sure what that means but Dad says it a lot and it seems appropriate.

Only a few more days until the big day.........

The Last Tuesday Before Christmas....

And another busy day comes to an end!  Alex helped the kids and I build a gingerbread house, it turned out way nicer than the Haunted Gingerbread House! Although I seemed a lot of 1-1 action 1 candy for the house and 1 for me...

Joey on the other hand was a reindeer at school today!  He came home with his antler headband on and wore it for just about the rest of the day.  I made him take it off when I took him in for a haircut and after they were done with him the headband was too big.  I didn't realize how much hair he had!

Dad was talking to Nannie MacAulay the other day, I'm not sure if it was on the phone or messaging but she said that the third man in that one picture from way back is indeed Arthur MacAulay. Now, I wasn't around at the time so I can't say for sure but there you have it Jen, it's a definite maybe.

Aaron finished up his Christmas shopping today and Mom and I will be finishing up tomorrow night. Guys are so hard to shop for! Especially since Aaron loves hunting and I know nothing about it or the tools or stuff you need for it.  Thank you Dad for the help, otherwise it would be the same old gift certificate.

Hope you're all ready for Christmas folks because it's got to be getting pretty ugly out there at the malls!

No more Mondays until Christmas...

We had a fairly eventful day today! It started out with finding my fish belly-up or close to it. We bought four new fish last week and three of them died pretty much right away and killed the rest of mine, so now I've disassembled the aquarium so we can decontaminate it and maybe we'll start over in the new year.

Joey and Alex are still sick with colds, although I still sent Joey off to school, he got cold medicine before he got on the bus and it wore off shortly after coming home so he wasn't too bad off. Today was his Christmas party at school and I didn't want him to miss it, plus I'd already made my Christmas tree shaped holiday rice krispie treats...although I'm sure the dayhome kids and I would have enjoyed them just as much. Tomorrow's adventure involves a gingerbread house...what am I thinking? Especially after the Haunted Gingerbread House mishap!

So, when I was looking for a little change of pace I let my fingers do the walking at naptime and phoned Auntie Jen. (Hi there!) You know, I felt like I've known her forever, it turns out we've got a lot in common. Thanks Uncle Paul for passing along her phone number!

Lastly, it was Memoirs of a Geisha night tonight with H. What a great movie! It is totally like the book which H and I have both read but will probably read again soon. I know what you mean Jen, during the previews for the movie I had that deja vu feeling and then realized that it was the book.

Wish me luck with the gingerbread house, Aaron has tomorrow off so hopefully he can help direct the kids a little or at least stop them from smearing icing in their hair, eyes, ears.....

Christmas parties are done for another year!

Which is good because they were all associated with Aaron's work so by the third party they've all heard the same jokes, stories about the boys, how I'm in love with my Doogie Howser dentist( not really but I ran out of things to talk about at the first party and now it's a running joke), and Aaron even brought out the weiner water soup jokes...the food was alright if you like the fancy stuff, I'd be happy with the good old-fashioned favourites like minestrone soup and ceasar salad versus the creamy butternut acorn soup with parsnip chips and something else, and the glazed pear with some kind of really old, smelly cheese covering the lettuce.  I accidently speared some cheese under my lettuce and had one nasty just about gagging surpise! For entertainment we had two gymnast/contortionists perform during cocktails...that was freaky!  I know at some point I must have heard 90% of the wives tell the hubbies to quit gawking or don't get any ideas normal women don't do that.

On the upside to things we came home to a quiet house!  Michelle had the boys in bed at 8 and 8:30 without a problem, that was a nice surprise, although they both have a really bad cold right now, they were up at 5 coughing and then just decided it was close enough to morning to just stay awake!  They were so wrong! But I just popped in a movie and kept on sleeping.

Tomorrow night is girls night out!  H won passes to see Memoirs of a Geisha so I'm going out with her as soon as Aaron gets home from work.  With a little luck I'll be able to finish his Christmas shopping then too.  It's not like me to not have my shopping done yet but he's only asked for two things: a tree stand (which I've already bought) and a knife sharpener to take hunting (which I have to buy still) other than that he's given me no hints whatsoever although the words Playstation 2 seem to be coming up in conversation lately.  We don't have any video game system so I think he's trying to hint...we'll see...

Only one more week before Christmas holidays!

The countdown is finally on! Only five more days with the dayhome kids until January! That noise you hear is me screaming hallelujah! Our Christmas party will be Thursday afternoon, and I believe I only have Aislynn and maybe Danny on Friday which will be a nice quietish day...until Nannie and Papa come that is!

We had the Carriere's over for some Christmas cheer and leftover snacks! I had the brilliant idea to make popcorn, divy it into three bowls for the Brooklyn, Joey and Alex and let them watch a movie in the playroom......well in about ten minutes there was a blanket of popcorn throughout the playroom. What do you do though? The grownups were trying to play cannasta and have some visiting time, so what's a little popcorn. That's what I keep telling Aaron anyways.

Saturday is our last formal Christmas party, so, it'll be another chaotic day of trying to fit in a manicure/pedicure, updo, little bit of shopping, picking up the sitter, dressing.. while Aaron's working. He'll have enough time to breeze in, have a shower, dress and run out the front door while I have the pleasure of last minute instructions to the $9/hour babysitter. Are we supposed to pick the sitter up a little token Christmas gift too?

Oh and Jenny, Auntie Brenda or Nannie sent out an email for the Sacred Heart Memorial 7 Day Soup Diet about a month ago. Apparently Auntie Brenda did it and lost quite a few pounds...even though it's only 7 days I can't seem to do it. If you google the diet I'm sure you'll find the recipe, the soups actually pretty tasty too, kind of a minestrone minus the pasta shells.

Will have pictures from tomorrow's shindig later this weekend...

Cookie Night Was a Success!

I think we had 10 ladies in attendance and a grand total of 72 dozen cookies! I think this will be a new Beck tradition, the guests were gone around 10 and everything was cleaned up by 10:45 but it was a whole lot of fun! We had spritz, shortbread, maccaroons, gingerbread, chocolate chippers, cookies dipped in chocolate and sooooo much more. We also have enough appetizer leftovers for our company tomorrow night. Sorry Cindy, you'll have to choke down the surprise dip one more time...if Aaron saves you some that is. Thanks everyone who came! Kalyna took home to prizes and Heather won the Bunco Game so she's now obligated to start a Bunco night although I volunteered my house so I don't have to drive to the Valley. And Lucie you HAVE to start a blog all about your Lucie-isms...plastic tray, hot oven...need I say more?...you always have a good Lucie-ism for us!

A Little Stroll Down Memory Lane

Jen's looking for some pictures of Grandpa Art and I'm not sure if he's in the last one, I'm assuming he is, why else would I have wanted it?  So, if you guys can help ID everyone that'd be great!  Although I know the cute kids in the second picture. For those who don't it's H, me, Monica and Mike...no wonder we have such cute kids!

My little elf!

Mommy forgot to dress Joey in red and green for Elf Day today but lucky for Joey they made elf hats so he blended in...as much as possible anyways.  Sorry Joey! 

Christmas cards went in the mail yesterday with the boys newest picture so hopefully everyone will get theirs by Christmas!  We put up the tree last night and so far the kids haven't paid too much attention to it other than their newest ornaments, Batman and Ninja Turtle courtesy of Nannie and Papa.

Dad seems to be doing well, he's at home already so that must be a good sign! The doctor's decided to fix his hernia while taking out his gallbladder which he says were the size of golf balls, yesterday they were the size of peas, I'm sure tomorrow they'll be the size of baseballs...right Dad?!

Joey & Alex's Christmas Picture

I can officially send out my Christmas cards tomorrow now that I have the boys pictures to pop in.  They turned out pretty good, it's a nice pose but the colours aren't as bright as they could be.  This was the second time I've had them done at Wal-Mart, the last time was when Joey was 3 months old and they sucked so I vowed to just keep going to Sears but after I seen the $19.95 Wal-Mart package I thought I'd better give them a try again.  Sometimes quantity is just as important as quality and there's no way I could get that many pictures at Sears for less than $80.

Anyways...it's nice to see that we can communicate with some more of our family via the blog-system. Hi Jen! It's cheap and easy and most of the time I find it pretty fun to do.

Joey came home from school today with some homemade lick and stick stickers with ugly elves on them (the old men with long white beards versus the cute kids with the curly hair and pudgy cheeks) these were a Christmas gift from his classmate George....well...I wasn't about to let Joey not be THE coolest kid in his class so I whipped out the crafty stuff and whipped up 28 litttle white triangular boxes stamped with red candycanes and filled them with chocolates, jellybeans and gumdrops. Now who's the coolest mom? I mean coolest kid, right?

Heather and I went shopping without the boys tonight and picked up some hotwheels and a case for the cars for Joey's class and I got Aaron a tree stand for Christmas. Now when he said tree stand I was thinking of a Christmas tree stand but oh no, what Aaron was talking about was this camouflauge chair that you put in a tree and sit in.  He asked for it so I sure hope he plans on using it.  I can't picture it though...I've never seen him climb a tree before and you must have to, to get the stand up there...should be worth a few laughs if nothing else!

Only three more days until the Cookie Extravaganza, I was planning on making three batches of cookies and ended up making four so that's 24 dozen cookies I've baked in the past two days. And surprisingly enough I haven't burned any of them yet.  I have all of the games organized and prizes wrapped, I just need to make the food, put up my Christmas tree (Aaron's procrastinating), spike the punch and we're good to go! I'm almost looking forward to it!

Dad's having his gallbladder surgery tomorrow afternoon and will be out of commission for a bit but Mom and Dad are still planning on travelling down here for Christmas.  Today he was awarded another medal of honour.  I think this one was to commemorate Albertans that have served their country and been awarded the MMM which is the Military's Order of Canada.  If I'm wrong Mom or Dad will correct me...Kudos to you Dad, just one more reason why it's great to be an Albertan, eh?

The Mac-Beck's are going to Beaverbrook!

http://www.themelvinfamily.blogspot.com is where you can catch up to Jen, apparently Norma's just about legally blind. Unfortunately you can't comment on her blog so she has no idea we're reading it and we have no way to 'talk' to her, I have her old mailing address and that's not going to do me any good.

Anyways... our tickets are booked we're officially going to holiday in the Maritimes next summer! I think we fly into Halifax at 8 in the morning on August 8th and then fly out on the 16th at 6 in the evening. We were trying to plan the timing so the kids will sleep on the plane...it could totally backfire on us but we'll give it a go. Now we just have to book a car rental and we're set. We've booked for Aaron, Les, Joey, Alex and Heather. Mom and Dad are planning on spending a month holidays driving across the country in the new truck and bringing the home away from home trailer with them. I'm not 100% sure about Jeff yet, "we" (Dad) were using "our" (Dad's) aero-plan miles to get the tickets and "we" had just about enough for 5 tickets so "we" bought the extra miles to get the 5 tickets so we're booked for sure and then if Jeff comes we can hopefully pickup a seat on the same flight plan.

I've printed off some maps of the Maritimes and distance charts so Aaron has an idea of how things are laid out there, he really had no clue how close everything is.

Party #2

Here we are all dressed up and ready for party #2 at Heritage Park hosted by Wilbert Vault. It was a pretty good night, good food, good company, good music, bad karaoke-ing. We were the last of the M & H'ers to leave I think we were home at 11:30, but we had a good time visiting with our friends, Right before we left Joey had an accident (he's still sick) so we were a little leary of leaving the boys but lucky for us it was Grandma's turn to sit so we went anyways. Turns out it was only a one shot deal and he was good for the rest of the night just a bit of a cough. Check out the sexy shoes, they're so not typical Lesley-style but amazingly enough they were comfy enough that I'll wear them to next weekends party. Coincidently I've probably be doing an encore presentation of tonight's party dress. I wore Leanne's pashmina tonight so I'll switch to a sheer fancier wrap next weekend and go with an updo. I think most of the ladies at tonight's gala are wearing the same outfits next weekend. Gotta get our money's worth!

I swear "It's a Small World After All" should be our theme song!

So, here I was taking a break from my boys today and I thought I'd check out the blog and figure out what could I possibly write about tonight when I clicked "next blog" and what did I see but my mysterious (only because we've never met) Auntie Jenny's blog. I think it was called A Day With Daisy or something like that so I was having a little looksy and the words BLUE WEDDING DRESS just kind of jumped out...now how many people that you know got married in a blue wedding dress?!? So, needless to say I've got the full story now. And then I had to go back up to the top to see the profile and sure enough it's the Melvin family blog. What a coincidence! Are there any more MacAulay blogs out there?

Doesn't this beat the Superstore story from last night?

Highlight of my Christmas shopping...

We decided to buy Joey's class the Little People's Garage which is listed at $44.99 in the Wish Book so when I seen it at Superstore tonight for $34.88 I jumped on it. When I got to the checkout it came up as $44.95 so after they checked it out they not only gave it to me for $34.88 they gave me an extra $10 off in accordance to the Scanning Code of Practise. I've seen that sign a hundred times and I'm sure I've had more than just this one item come up at the wrong price, but in any case it was a nice surprise! So now that we got the Garage for $25 I think we'll probably buy them some books and some shaving cream as well.

There's another baby boy in the neighbourhood, our next door neighbours had Aiden Isaiah on Tuesday. This seems to be the year of baby boys...except Joeye and Courtney of course.

Cheers!

Here is our picture pre-Christmas Party #1...notice Aaron's cute holiday shot glass necklaces. 

So, in the background you'll see pretty  much the extent of our living room Christmas decorations. The tree won't be up until Sunday, oh and there's also poinsetta garland wrapped along the curtain rod which is not pictured.  Aaron doesn't believe in putting un-necessary holes in the walls so there goes the idea of hanging anything and he's not willing to put up a shelf to display things on so I think my decorating is going to be somewhat limited. (hence the dining room holiday curtains) I have the Partylite stuff on the end shelves of my kitchen cupboards and stuff in the high windows in the dining room....Pretty sparse if you ask me, but this is a losing battle with Aaron.  He actually read an article in Men's Health about 9 years ago that was titled "Knick-Knack's CAN Kill You", he should have laminated it and stuck it in his wallet because he quotes this article an awful lot.  It said that about 15% of all accidental deaths are related to knick-knacks. 

The playroom on the other hand is my domain and is done up quite well, bulletin board and all!  The kids and I started our Christmas ornament crafts this morning, we're making the candy canes a la beads and pipecleaners.  I can't count how many times I pricked my finger on the pipecleaners, I'm sure I'll have a big callous by the time we're finished our project.

What else are friends for other than embarrassing?

I'm sure my day will come Tina when someone does the same to me...and if you're lucky you'll be the one with the pictures.

We had an awesome visit with Brooklyn, Mackenzie, Aunty Cindy and Auntie Heather today! I was short a Zeke today and had lots of adult help which is rare but oh so appreciated!

So, going back a week or so of blogs I wrote that we were going to buy Joey's classroom something for Christmas and had asked for suggestions from his teacher...You won't believe the reply we received. A toy garage for little cars, some construction diggers for the sand box, a hardcover book and shaving cream(for crafts)! That's it! We were a bit surprised at the requests...if someone offered to buy my classroom something I think I'd have a huge list with a few pricey items just in case someone is feeling very generous this Christmas. The way we look at it though, Joey's Junior K and bussing is covered by some provincial funding so we're saving $610/month. So even if we spent a couple hundred we're still on the winning end of the deal!

The school is having a visit from Santa/and a party on the 19th and unfortunately I can't get the morning off with such short notice and Aaron has to work that day too...so unless Auntie has the morning off Joey won't have any family there. Apparently they have a family party in lieu of a Christmas concert in the evening. I guess we know for next year though. Sorry Joey!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TINA!

Is this embarrassing or what?!? Now if only I can find the picture of us at Glenn's when handcuffs were a fashion accessory...what were you thinking?...although I think I was the one wearing the spiky choker...maybe we'll just leave that picture hidden away somewhere...well at least until there's a stagette or wedding...I'll embarrass myself for that!

I love my blog readers!

It's such a nice cozy feeling to see y'all checking up on me and my boys...

Anyways, Mike I can't believe that you can come visit the island but you have to pay to leave...well actually I can believe that...that's not exactly chump change either...I guess we'll be saving our $1600/it's great to be an albertan money for our trip...eventually though I'll get my front loading washer and Aaron will get his fancy gunsafe. I have warned him though that his $1500 gun safe will be on display in my living room where my $1500 leather couch could have been.

Thanks H for clearing up the cocaine business...I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it couldn't have been true! It just seems sooooooooo very wrong!

In my 90 seconds per minute day today I managed to whip up some holiday curtains for the dining room and organize our Christmas tree decorations. The big tree trimming will probably be this Sunday providing Aaron isn't hungover from Christmas Party #2, which is a formal, which means open bar, which usually means that Aaron's double fisting his drinks for most of the night...

Thanks for the holiday suggestions! We're booking our tickets this week...pretty exciting isn't it...

And when I mentioned clam digging to Aaron he actually said "you mean they're buried in the sand and you have to look for them, like with a shovel?"

He really needs to get out more!

But it really was cocaine!

Jeff and I both asked the doctor again and again if he really did say cocaine..so now I've done the research and have found out that it's used in the emergency rooms in hospitals frequently to stop nosebleeds or as a local anesthetic for cuts in children...I had no idea, and now I think I'll be more cautious of what goes on when I'm taking the kids to the ER. (not like it's very often, don't get me wrong)

But it's nice to see so many people read the blog!

Hi Steven!

Is there still a ferry that runs from NB to PEI?

Aaron's making a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE list of things he wants to do this summer and that's one of them but I'm not sure if they still have the ferry now that there's a bridge...any suggestions of things that Aaron must do while down East?

My sister...the drug user...Sorry H, can't keep this gem a secret!

So, here I was worried about the boys being too sick for Auntie Heather to handle, well it turns out that Heather was the one in need of medical attention last night!
We came home just before midnight last night from Christmas Party #1 to find Heather having a major nose bleed.This went on for three and a half hours. No lie! After the first thirty minutes I called the health line and they said to put pressure on her nose for 10 minutes at a time for up to three times and if that doesn't work then head to the hospital. After twenty five minutes we started towards the hospital in Black Diamond and after they watched her pinch her nose for thirty minutes straight they decided to pack her nose with some cocaine covered swabbies. Jeff and I weren't too sure if we heard the doctor right and I think we must have asked him two or three more times. You said cocaine right?!? So, on the upside the nose bleed finally stopped, on the downside Jeff was stuck making small talk for Heather for the following couple hours until she settled down! Ha Ha!
I think I got home from the hospital at 4 this morning and H probably passed out or maybe I should say came down from her high around 5...

Can kids plan when they'll be sick?

Tonight is the first of our three parties and of course Alex was throwing up last night and has slept his entire day away today. Joey's not as bad but has still done hardly anything. I'm starting to think that it's a conspiracy! Last year we were going to go to Las Vegas for Aaron's 30th and both boys got a really nasty virus. This weekend we had the boys' little "girlfriends" coming to town for a visit. Every time I go to the Tim Horton's drive thru in Mackenzie Lake they ask to go to Kacie's house, apparently that was a routine that they took note of, so now that the MacVince household has moved to Alix, Alberta the kids don't get to play once a week or so. Actually I think it's been more like four or five months since they've seen each other! Wow! Where does the time go? So, that's nixed for today and tomorrow is Brooklyn's birthday party so I have a feeling we'll be cancelling that one too. No need to infect everyone, especially since there will be lots of babies there! So, Auntie Heather is still babysitting for us tonight and has been prepared for the worst. As a bribe we're ordering pizza for her and I've already made all of her Christmas cards for her. Wish her luck!

Snow Day!

This is how Alex spent his day...he started off with 'the stacking of the cans', thankfully none of them landed on his toes!  And then we progressed to some fun in the snow. My kids are real snowbunnies!  I had to bribe Alex to come in for a snack after he'd been out for an hour.

Tonight was the last parent seminar at Joey's school, Auntie Heather came with me to check out the Crazy Lady and as Murphy's Law would have it, the mom wasn't there tonight.  Although H did get to meet Joey's O.T. and Speech T. who couldn't say enough great things about Joey and she got to check out his school and classroom.  It was pretty impressive I must say!

Then we hit Chinook Centre to get some more lined pants at Old Navy.  You gotta love that store, if you've never shopped there, you need to start.  We picked up some navy lined pants and 5 really cool/stylish long sleeved shirts for the boys and it was only $58.  You can't get that at Wal-Mart.  And we picked up a few more Christmas gifts and then called it a night.  We're having a lot of blowing snow and H still had to drive to Turner Valley.

Thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow! It's been a long week and I think we're decorating the house this weekend...I've got most of my games/prizes/food organized for this big Cookie Extravaganza...my plan was to host the first annual exchange and then we'll all take turns hosting but Mom kindly pointed out that it's called "The 1st Annual Beck Cookie Exchange" so it looks like I'm in it for the long haul.

Oh well, I thrive on chaos! 

Two good pictures of Joey from the Baptism

 

Okay the pictures were posted backwards but what had happened was I asked Joey to smile for a picture and he thought about it for a sec (picture 2) and then started dancing (picture 1).  My kids are such clowns!

Yes Mom, I think I do have a 36 hour day! Actually I think it's just that my minutes are actually 90 seconds long versus everyone else only having 60 seconds!  It's 7:40 PM, Aislynn stayed late until 6:10 and since then I have made dinner, fed the boys, done dishes, gave the boys a bath, got them into bed and asleep, swept and mopped the main floor, cleaned the main floor bathroom, ironed Aaron's shirts and started another load of laundry, and changed all of the garbages.  Not necessarily in that order but I'm motivated to get the rest done so I can finish wrapping Christmas presents.  I also need to make Christmas cards for Joey's teachers/therapists/bussing aides/drivers...we went with the traditional Pot of Gold for each of them and I'm thinking of putting coffee certificates in their cards from Starbucks or Tim Hortons.  We're also buying something for the classroom, I sent a list of ideas but haven't got a firm answer yet.  We were thinking of art supplies or maybe a CD player for the class or something like that. We'll be putting our "It's Great to Be an Albertan" money to good use and spreading it around a bit.

Joey's birthday extravaganzas are finally done

The last party was today at school, Aaron dropped off the chocolate milk, treats and cake which was iced with Joey's assistance (only a Mom could love it). So, we're done the birthdays for '05 just in time for the Christmas mayhem to begin!

We took the boys shopping tonight and got almost everything done, we have two things to buy at the mall and then just a few stocking stuffers and we're ready...except Aaron and I haven't bought anything for each other yet but that'll probably be in the next week, we just have to decide what we'd like to see under the tree this year. After an hour of wrapping I had to call it quits all I could see were dancing santas and colourful snowmen. Aaron works late tomorrow night so once the boys are in bed I'll be back at it again.

Christmas pictures were a success last Thursday! The girl took three pictures, the second one was perfect so we went with that. Pickup is the 13th, so that forces me to put off mailing my cards until the 14th...that's so not like me!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOEY!

Today is Joey's official birthday, although we've already celebrated it twice on Friday. So today we went a different route and headed off to church to see cousin Easton get baptized. Now, usually Joey is the loud, uncontrollable one in the back of the church well today he was as good as gold (hopefully that's not a fluke) and his little brother Alex was the devillish one. He was soooo bad! Yelling when it was really quiet, trying to army crawl under the pews to get away from Mommy. It's lucky for Aaron that he was working and didn't have to witness this unruly behaviour although he did miss a good baptism, the priest wasted no time and managed to get eight wee ones baptised in less than an hour. That's pretty impressive! After the ceremony we headed over to Chris and Janine's (the proud parents) and I let the boys loose in the basement for a while, Aaron will be pleased to know that they were pretty content playing hockey/foosball with Uncle Dan. We headed home just before dinner time and both boys passed out for the thirty minute drive home and woke up refreshed and ready to go again for another few hours. Conveniently enough Aaron called to see how we're doing and now he's running late... lucky guy...

Helllllllllllllllllllllo down East!

It's nice to see you guys checking up on us! Have you started saving your pennies for your next trip out?!?
I think you guys have piqued Aaron's interest enough that he's willing to fly down home and see what it's all about down there. We told him that if he's lucky enough he may get to go to a corn boil (he still doesn't understand the whole idea) He's heard enough stories, seen enough pictures and has gotten picked on enough by Mom, Dad, H and I for not being past Manitoba that he's willing to leave the west for a family vacation.
Actually Aaron's taken 2 weeks off in August and was tossing around the idea of driving to the Maritimes....then Mom and Dad told him just how long of a drive it is and he basically said to heck with driving!
So, I've cancelled Aaron's big surprise birthday party so we can put the money towards a family vacation. Which makes more sense, the hall was $300 and the entertainment was $500 so toss in the food, decorations and even with it being BYOB I'd still be spending about $1300. It wouldn't have been a surprise anyways, Aaron found my notes on top of the microwave, it was in my business folder so I assumed it was safe. Guess I was wrong. I think I was more surprised that he was cleaning on top of the microwave then snooping in my folder. Ha Ha, jokes on me once again!
We'll keep you all informed of our plans to be...we really need a getaway vacation with the family and the boys are getting old enough to be away from home for longer periods so we're really hoping we can get our plans together to make this happen! Now if I can just get Alex fully potty trained then we're good to go anywhere!
Did I mention that it's ALL of us coming? It'll be the 1st MacAulay-Beck family vacation! The cat's out of the bag now Dad! I beat you to it!

The Birthday Boy!

 

Joey's gift opening

 

The closest Jeff will come to having his own...nobody will ever call me Auntie Lesley...

 

Blowing out the candles

 

This is soooooooo Aaron!

 

Courtney, one of the highlights of the night!

 

Alex's rocket launcher!

 

Here's Jeff riding the lion...

 

Here's the Birthday Pictures...

The Spiderman Cake, a joint effort between me and Dad, I had the easy part and baked the cake.

 

Joey's Birthday was a success!

What a great party! We had lots of friends, family, food, drinks and a whole lot of laughs! Uncle Jeff got the party started off on the right foot by riding around the main floor on Joey's new Elephant ride on stick toy compliments of cousin Lucie! You know it can only get better! Joey and Alex were on a sugar high and started crashing around 7 which was arrival time so we managed to keep Joey awake with his Batman game for the TV...so we didn't see much of the birthday boy except for blowing out his candles and opening his gifts! Courtney, our youngest party goer, just about two months old now, made her rounds last night...I think all of the grown ups had a turn to hold the baby, and what a good baby she kind of just dozed and smiled and looked around. It kind of makes three seem like a good idea...but then I think that Alex is almost out of diapers. I'm not sure I could be back down that road again. Alex had a good time last night and finally crashed at 9:30, Joey on the other hand was awake until 11:30 and if he was given the option I'm sure he would have tucked all of his new toys in bed with him. Joey had a hard time winding down so instead he just hit the wall and passed out. Much like the rest of us.
So, we have two parties down and only one to go, which is at school so I just need to provide the cake and chocolate milk and someone else can do the rest. Thank goodness!

It's A Red One!

Some people collect hockey cards and some people collect red vehicles! Ha Ha!  Here's the latest addition to the MacAulay Clan of Morinville.  I must say Aaron was reallllllllllly jealous!  You can kind of see Aaron's truck in the background, it's a 2003 Ford F-150 Lariat, with the two swing-out back doors (I'm not sure of the technical name for them)...so that's not too shabby...until Mom and Dad pull up in their fully loaded 2005 Ford ZF4 OffRoad, leather interior, sunroof...shiny red truck.  Now Aaron has the urge to go kick tires again...I think we may end of trading in the van (sad day for Les!) and getting an Expedition. We'll see what the New Year has in store for us.

Tomorrow is Joey's dayhome birthday party as well as family birthday party.  No theme this time although we're thinking of doing a poker run for Alex's next year and a snow carnival for Joey's next year...there was no snow this year so that was out of the question...we should have had a back up plan...

My son....the nudist...

Alex is definitely not a shy boy! We're still experimenting with the pottying and today Alex wore his Spiderman pull up pants and was desperate to keep them clean...so desperate that on our daily walk around the pond he tried to drop his drawers to have a pee! It's enclosed on a good portion of this pond so I'll let the boys run up a little ways so they have a taste of freedom (not too much though) so I see Alex stop and start pulling up his hoodie and I'm totally confused, I was thinking he had a bee fly up his sweater ( yeah I know how dumb that sounds) but then I see him hold his sweater under his chin the same way he does with a long shirt so he doesn't pee on it and then he starts to tug his pants down. So, I started hollering at him to pull up his pants and then he starts laughing this wicked little laugh and assumes the pee position. Conveniently enough the city workers finally showed up to finish our sound barrier wall and these guys were having quite the laugh, I'm sure it must have been a sight!
Now, I know why Joey was trained in one week in the middle of winter!

Madagascar Premiere Night

Here's a picture from last Tuesday when they boys watched Madagascar, Joey dragged his teddy bear downstairs and tucked him in with them. It was pretty cute!

Today was a very unsuccessful potty training day with Alex, he knew when he had to poop but would take off his diaper to poop on the floor and then put his diaper back on to pee in and then take if off again. Maybe by Christmas we'll get the hang of it. Alex had a super busy day, he went to the dentist this morning for a checkup, Aaron said he was really good and opened up for the dentist to see his teeth, then for the rest of the morning he was trying to get the little girls to open up and show him their teeth. Is playing doctor in the near future? Hope not!

Wow! What a weekend!

We planned to go to the cottage for a little R and R this weekend and although we did get out of the city there was not much down time...for Aaron that is. Hee hee. Deb phoned us Friday night to forewarn us that one of their trees fell over in their wicked wind storm they'd had that morning. Aaron estimated that it was at least two feet in diameter and probably 70 feet tall. It sounds pretty big, I'm sure he said 70 though. So, the guys ended up chopping down another 7 or 8 trees and cutting them up too. I suppose it's better to make the choice to take down the ones that are leaning versus waiting for them to fall down or worse yet fall down on your house. So, the boys and I tried to stay out of the way for the most part although they did enjoy their little rides on Uncle Eric's quad.
One of my dayhome kids' mom has had her baby. Elliot Fynn Kinghorn was born on November 13th weighing in at 8 lbs. 14 oz. Michelle and Elliot are doing really well, apparently he's a dream baby, sleeps well, eats well...and Connor's pretty proud to be a big brother! We're hoping they'll come to Joey's first birthday party on Friday and show him off.

The "Crazy Manners' Lady" was back at school tonight!

But tonight her big beef was that the therapists couldn't explain 'why' our children have motor planning difficulties. I wish one of us had the nerve to tell her to shut up so we can move on to the more important 'how can we help' . So they explained tonight that with children and speech deficiencies it's more about how to get the muscles in their mouth to do what they want, when they want and how to anticipate the next vowel sounds because as I learned tonight when you say 'bee' and 'boy' they are both the 'b' sound but your lips are in totally different positions...how do any of us learn to talk in the first place there are just way too many rules!

On to more exciting stuff to discuss...Aaron's surprise birthday party...he doesn't actually read the blog so we should be safe! If not I guess the surprise will be mine! This shindig is almost like planning a whole big wedding reception, we're renting the Mac.Town hall's banquet room and hiring a DJ and doing appetizers and snacks, I still need to get the liquor license....doesn't it sound like a wedding to you?!? The party didn't start out so huge! I'm planning on about 75 people so our house just wouldn't do because Aaron's a March baby and we can't use the backyard/deck, so that's where the hall came in, and then I got to thinking of have games tournaments or something but that's too much organizing (even for me) so then I thought of just having a dance, then you need to provide food to help absorb the booze and so on and so forth...so I think we're having us a huge celebration. And yes, it will be another theme party, and considering we're holding it a week early on St. Patrick's Day (to really surprise him/hall was booked for the 24th) , I'm thinking it'll have to be a green and gold theme of some sort...I'm open to suggestions...just wearing green and gold seems a little too easy...wish me luck...I'm sure this will be the topic of many a blog to come!

Shopping at Costco

Apparently the Christmas season is the time to shop at Costco! I left my house at 7:00 and was home at 8:10, that must be a new record! There weren't very many people there at all, I think I only waited in line for five minutes. I did get the jumbo bag of meatballs (you're welcome Aaron) but they didn't have any more cases of gourment hot chocolate so it looks like I'm out of luck. We'd bought two cases already but split them up between Joey's bus people. So it's now 9:02, the boys are sleeping, Aaron folded my laundry and cleaned the floors while I was gone, what's left for me to do? Oh I know, an uninterrupted soak in the tub...doesn't happen often enough!
And for those of you wondering, we never did find the diamond so Dad worked his magic and got a deal on a replacement stone from his new best friend at the Morinville Jewellry Store.

I'm on top of things once again!

Little Miss Organization is back in the game! I have Joey's invites sent out and his parties are planned, Friday he'll celebrate with the dayhome kids in the afternoon, family in the evening and then at school on the following Monday. The poor kid will hate cake by the time Monday rolls around. Yeah right! I have also planned and sent out my invites to the 1st Annual Beck Cookie Exchange. I've decided to pull out all the stoppers and just go for it! I usually do some exchanges over the holidays, this just includes a few more gals and is all at one time. (Mom you may need to bring down some more wine next week, ha ha) So, after I planned everything Aaron asked me what kind of cookie am I making...well I never really thought about it that much so now I've got to go through my trusty little recipe box consult Tina and Kathryn who swapped with me last year and find out what was a hit and what was a miss...

Mondays suck!

For no particular reason other than it means there are four more days after today before we can relax again!

The rest of our weekend was pretty uneventful, Aaron, Dad and Shawn partied until early evening and Aaron was in bed at 5:30, Dad at 7:30 and Shawn's wife picked him up at 6:30 (God bless you Tammy!) So, I had the boys in bed by 8:00 and Mom and I just hung out, watched TV, played Scrabble and enjoyed the quiet for once!

There was no sign of the missing diamond, we searched until we got frustrated and bored so it's off to the jeweller's to see how much it'll take to replace the diamond. Poor Aaron...he's not budging on the bigger diamond idea either...poor Les...

Aaron had today off so he picked up Joey from school and took him Christmas shopping at Toys R Us and out for lunch. Joey was soooooooo excited until he realized that he couldn't play with all of these cool toys when he got home. We got shopping done for the boys' cousins, friends and godparents now it's just the grandparents, aunts,uncles and the boys....and Joey's teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, educational assistant, and his morning bus driver, and his morning bus aide, and his afternoon bus driver, and his afternoon bus aide...can you tell how thrilled I am? Oh well, the way Aaron sees it is that if you keep them happy they'll keep Joey happy. Joey has a 90 minute bus ride each way and he's the first one to picked up in the morning, and I tell ya, he has those ladies wrapped around his little finger. Darlene has his favourite toys in a basket under his seat, and a Spiderman poster taped to the window for him. They are fabulous! Without them I don't think he'd be too pleased to get on the bus at 7 o'clock! So, what should I buy for all 8 of Joey's helpers? Chocolates? Starbucks $?

What busy boys we've got!

We left Thursday at 5:32 and they haven't stopped since! The drive was pretty uneventful, Alex snoozed while Joey stayed awake and watched Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. I packed only the old movies because I was tired of listening to Spiderman, Batman, Superman and of course Pingu! The boys ran around like a couple of crazies for a couple hours after we arrived and then they hit the wall and passed out. (Thank God for small miracles!) We were up bright and early at 6:20 Friday morning ready to start our big adventure of the day. Everyone got bundled up for the Remembrance Day ceremony and the guys went one way and the boys went the other way so Mom and I took Joey and Alex to the playground where they made a couple of new friends. One of the boys tried to follow us home afterwards...creepy...so, we hit Old Navy in the afternoon and bought the boys lined jeans, lined pants, two pairs of track pants each and 2 diaper shirts for Alex, two shirts for Joey and a sweater for Joey and we only spent $162.11. I don't think I could get that at WalMart for any cheaper! You gotta love Old Navy! It was actually the first time Aaron had ever been and I had to hold him back from adding more to the cart! He' s a bargain shopper at heart. You know how things all happen in three's ?!? well here's yesterday's disasters... (1) Dad shatters a corelle plate while making breakfast and we ended up throwing a lot out because there was shards everywhere, Corelle doesn't chip or anything but if you get the right angle it'll explode! (2) Aaron was refilling the fridge with Coke and one exploded (only Aaron could break an unopened Coke ) (3) And lastly I was proudly wearing my brand new, only had it for 18 hours, new 3 band diamond ring when, oops, one of the five diamonds was missing! AAAAAAAH! That was Aaron screaming, not me, so we searched on hands and knees with the flashlights, vacuumed and sifted through the bag...and it's gone. So, now we have to get that replaced/fixed...although it's prime time to upgrade to a bigger center diamond...right Aaron???Needless to say Dad and Aaron met up with their buddy to go wallow Aaron's sorrows in beer at "The Zoo" and try and win some meat for supper. Hopefully the rest of the weekend will be uneventful!

Twenty hours and counting...

Not that I'm anxious to get out of the city but only twenty more hours to go...the boys are pretty excited to visit Nannie and Papa so it's hard not to get a wee bit excited too! Joey's not even in bed yet, which isn't a good thing considering it is a school night and all. It's lucky for him that tomorrow is dance class so he can just follow along. He's getting quite the dance moves! Tonight while trying to put him to bed he acted out Dr. Seuss's Ten Apples Up On Top. In one word, it was hilarious! He puts his hands on his hips to show the mad puppy and then skips when the puppy skips and pretends to put apples on his head. What a funny boy we've got! Today was an outdoor day today, the kids and I walked to the Town Hall to meet one of their playmates and his mom for a visit, they played in the cold for over an hour and then we had to take the lonnnnnnnnnng way home and stop at the park close to our house because the first park didn't have swings. Well let me tell you the kids that napped had no problem falling asleep! Poor Ben just about fell asleep in his lunch! They have officially started Christmas decorating in the neighbourhood, last night they had the trees in the park all lit up. I think if it's nice out on Monday Aaron will be putting up our lights. Hope everyone has a great weekend! We're hoping for good weather on Remembrance Day so the boys don't freeze outside at the ceremony! But we'll take what we can get! Last year in minus 20 weather Papa and Joey bundled up (Joey actually wore a toque and a balaklava and his hood and a scarf tied around the works, it was so funny) and they snowblowed Mom and Dad's driveway, and both their neighbours and in front of everyone's houses! Even the cold won't keep my two boys indoors!

Christmas is creeping up slowly but surely!

Well Christmas cards are pretty much done, they're just awaiting pictures of the boys which we have yet to get done, and they're good to go...maybe I should wait until at least December 1st before mailing. Which brings me to my first question: When are you 'supposed' to start decorating for the holidays? I seem to put it off until a week or two before Christmas and then take down before New Year's. Is this the norm? And secondly I'm contemplating the doing the first annual Beck Cookie Exchange this year. I usually do one every year but I thought of doing the big grandioso (is that a real word?) thing where all the ladies come over on the same night and we have cocktails and snacks and play silly games and then do the exchange. Typically in the earlier years the ladies just drop off the cookies and I re-distribute to everyone. So......here's the second question.....when do you do the cookie exchange, one week before Christmas? two weeks? three weeks? I think the earlier the better because the closer to Christmas the busier you are, but then the earlier you do it you'd have to freeze your cookies and fresh is best...on the other hand the big variety also offsets the downside of frozen cookies. I'm sure you all think I need to get a life (I agree) but please post your answers to my dilemma!
I received our invite to Brooklyn's 3rd birthday party which reminds me that I have not planned Joey's yet...Aaron's having a schedule change at work and potentially could work that weekend which forces us to do an evening soiree on the Saturday because Grey Cup is the following Sunday and we don't want to have a football/beer/nacho party for Joey!
I suppose little miss organization needs to get her butt in gear and finish/start planning!

Zoo Day

This is probably the closest Aaron will get to a deer this season. Just kidding Aaron!  We actually have moose from '03 and deer from '04 so I think besides Aaron missing out on the "thrill of the hunt" we're good for meat.  This year we're buying 1/2 a cow from Auntie Glenda, that should pretty much fill the freezer, now if only our chicken connection hadn't have changed trucking routes...way to go Steve...Anyways, yesterday was Zoo Day at the Beck household, it was only about -1 so we only walked around for a couple hours but we still had a good time!  The boys got to feed the ducks, usually there's a tonne of people crowded around there but lucky for us there were only about twenty cars in the entire lot, so we kind of had the run of the zoo.  The boys were in their glory!  Yesterday was also haircut day for the boys, Joey got the professional haircut while Alex got the "homemade, give it a few days and it'll look okay" haircut.  Their hair grows so fast they need it cut every 6 weeks and at $15 a pop, I'll cheap out as long as I can, Joey's in school though so I can't have him looking dorky!  We're off to Mom's Thursday night and although we'd planned to just hang out all weekend, it's already progressed to the Remembrance Day Parade/Ceremony, shopping at Old Navy for my growing Joey, and the Zoo for Aaron and Dad.  Other than that I'm sure we'll hit the local parks with the boys and take it from there.  I can't wait!  Now I must run and get dinner planned and prepped for tonight, Aaron's working a bit late and I have a dentist app't at 6 so Auntie Heather is the lucky candidate to babysit for the boys.  The kids love hanging out with her so it's easier on me to leave without them crying, cooking dinner for one more is a small price to pay for good help! Tee hee!

Could a guy still go under pressure?

This was too funny! I thought we'd share it with everyone! Hope everyone is having a better than weekend than we are, Aaron's working and the boys are so cranky.  We were going for a walk and Alex wouldn't stick with us and Joey wanted to be carried, so it was a short walk needless to say.  Aaron's off tomorrow so we're hoping to hit the zoo for a couple hours.  Maybe Aaron'll get lucky and see some animals mating.  LOL! He picked up a Ford F150 quad cab yesterday morning as our courtesy vehicle while the rustbucket is being repaired.  Aaron does drive a Ford F150 with the four doors but the back door is like a 1/2 door that pulls open only when the front door is open, but now he's thinking he may have to get the full four doors because it's way easier getting the kids in and out.  My argument is that we've got the minivan as the kids main mode of transport so why get a bigger truck just for that...but you know what guys are like...bigger, better, faster, more power...we're supposed to get the van back by Tuesday just in time for the next road trip north on Thursday!  Without the movies I don't think we'd survive!